Since determining what we observe as new or familiar is essential for prioritizing our attention, neuroscientists have dedicated years to understanding why our brains excel at this task. During their research, they have encountered seemingly conflicting findings. However, a recent study reveals t
, Bear’s lab happened to observe the opposite: Mice would actually show a sharp jump in neural activity in the primary visual region of the cortex when a familiar stimulus was flashed in front of the animal. This spike of activity is called a “visually evoked potential” , and Bear’s lab has since shown that increases in the VEPs are solid indicators of VRM.
Early studies suggested that SRP occurs among excitatory neurons in layer 4 of the visual cortex and specifically might require the molecular activation of their NMDA receptors. What they found was that many of the hallmarks of VRM, including VEPs, occur in all layers of the cortex but that it seemed to depend on NMDA receptors on a population of excitatory neurons in layer 6, not layer 4. This is an intriguing finding, the authors said, because those neurons are well connected to the thalamus and to inhibitory neurons in layer 4, where they had first measured VEPs.
“What I think is exciting about this is that it suddenly sheds light on the mechanism, because it’s not that the encoding of familiarity is explained by the depression of excitatory synapses,” Bear said. “Rather, it seems to be accounted for by the potentiation of excitatory synapses on to neurons that then recruit inhibition in the cortex.”
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